Evaluating Online Resources

How can you be sure the information you find on the Internet is reliable?

One of the greatest strengths of the Internet is that, unlike many forms of printed media like books, almost anyone can post information on the Internet. However, this is also one of the Internet's greatest weaknesses because it can be easy to find inaccurate or biased material. Fortunately, there are a few important ways you can evaluate whether a website has reliable and objective information.

1. Author

In order to use information from a website in your writing, you will want to be able to find who wrote the information posted on the site. Many sites may have very interesting or relevant information, but do not list who wrote the information or whom the data can be attributed to. This can make your job of attributing the information to the person who wrote it more difficult. Some sites only attribute information to organizations instead of individual persons, while others credit editors or webmasters for material instead of writers or authors.

It is always preferable if you can find who provided information on a website that you wish to use in your research. In addition, it is usually helpful to save the website's address, title, the date the information was written or last updated if available, and the date you found the information.

Can you tell who the authors of these articles are: Article 1, Article 2?

2. Authority

One of the first signs that can show how much you can rely an online resource is the overall appearance of the site. Through experience, you can begin to tell the difference between the appearance of a homemade site and a professional site. Are there broken image links on the site? Does the site contain misspelled words? If you notice something that makes the page look like a personal homepage, you may want to question the site's reliability.

A website's address or URL (uniform resource locator) can also give you an idea as to the authority of the person or organization that created the material. For example, a site that has an address that suggests it is a personal homepage such as http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ian.barnsley/bslsite/bslindex.html where the main part of the address before the extension (in this case the .com extension) is not related to the personal name for the site that appears later in the address.

In the address above, Ian Barnsley's site, as shown in the address is being hosted by ntlworld.com. So, the information found on this site reflects the knowledge and views of one person posting whatever he wants. Contrast that to addresses like deaf.com that have a definitive connection to the subject of deafness.

The extension of a website can also tell you a lot about the site. Here are some examples of different address extensions.

.com = commerce	The .com extension denotes sites that are usually, but not always, made for selling things. For example, harriscomm.com is the Internet address for a website that sells products for Deaf and Hard of Hearing people. So, the site's section on compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act focuses on selling products to help businesses comply with the law.
.edu = education	The .edu extension is reserved for educational institutions such as universities and other schools. Sites with this extension, such as gallaudet.edu, are usually reliable sources of academic information. Remember though that the information from a school's website will reflect the views and values of the institution. Gallaudet University, for example, is dedicated to the education of Deaf and Hard of Hearing students, and so the school's site with reflect that focus.
.org = organization	The extension .org is supposed to be for non-profit organizations such as charities and churches. For example, insightcinema.org is the Internet address for a non-profit organization that lists open captioned movie showings around the United States. However, many organizations that are regular businesses use sites that have the .org extension, such as pacificdreams.org, which is a translation company. So, you still have to be careful about using information from sites with the .org extension.

3. Sponsorship

Closely related to the issue of authority in finding objective and accurate information on the Internet is the issue of sponsorship. Although many sites can have more objective information than others, no perspective is completely free of bias. So, one way to tell if you can trust the information on a site is to find who sponsors the website and what their views on the subject are.

For example, companies that make alcoholic drinks will have different information on the Internet than organizations that warn against the dangers of alcoholism. Similarly, the following sites may have very different views of such topics as deafness, American Sign Language, cochlear implants, oralism, and so on.

4. Up-to-date

One very important factor in evaluating information found on the Internet is how current the information is, especially if the information is time-sensitive. When was the website last updated? How frequently is the website updated? Is the information still accurate, or has it changed since the website was last changed? One way to check this is to look at the copyright information, usually near the bottom of the page.

This site has been updated sometime this year: ClubDeaf.com. When was the site created?

Can you tell when this site was last updated: SigningResources.com?

Pop Quiz

1. What are four ways to tell how reliable and objective information from a website is?

2. Why is it important to check if information found on a site is up-to-date?

3. What does the Web address extension .edu mean and what kinds of institutions use it?

4. Why is it important to record the name of a website's author?

5. Why is it important to make sure information you find online is up-to-date?

Practice

Now that you have reviewed some guidelines to evaluate information you see on the Internet, check out some sites on sign language and Deaf culture and judge them for yourself.